We had the pleasure of being a part of a dear friend and colleague's wedding this September, and we couldn't wait to share this special edition of DJ Diaries with you! Brad and Brian both packed up our van and drove south to Alabama for Rae Marshall's wedding! That name may be ringing a bell since she is also a wedding photographer. If you've ever wondered where our great website photos came from, it's straight from her camera lens! Rae couldn't shoot her own wedding, so her friends at Glass Jar Photography were kind enough to celebrate and capture her day for her! The photos are stunning! We wish Rae and Phillip all the love and happiness in the world! Enjoy!

“The Camera is a instrument that teaches people how to see with out a Camera.” I feel like this quote sums up our friend Rebecca “Rae” Marshall about as good as any I can come up with. Rae is a fantastic photographer who owns her own business called Rae Marshall Photography. I will be the first to admit that I do not understand the way Rae sees the world. The images she captures are an enigma to me. She captures moments and color in such a unique way. When we decided to re-launch our website and branding Rae was the first person I thought of to handle the photography to get the Nashville look. And by Nashville look I don’t mean lower Broadway honkey tonk club neon. We were trying to find the deeper side of Nashville. We wanted the rich creative music history, old building on the verge of becoming truly metropolitan, small town big town growing pains Nashville. And just like that Rae captured that for us.

We were honored when Rae reached out to us to help with her and Phillip’s wedding. I will be honest and say that I wondered if we could bring the same “view of the world” to her wedding that she brings out in her images. I knew it would start with the music. As you can imagine Rae doesn’t necessarily listen to Top 40 radio every day. So there was the challenge of making her dance floor as unique and diverse as she is as a person but also finding those guilty pleasure anthems that everyone knows. The second part of the equation was setting the tone and mood. So we brought our open air photo booth, LED uplighting by Chauvet and Dance Lighting. At the end of the night I felt like we were able to capture the personalities of Rae and Phillip.

The fun part of this experience was the diversity of the bride as I mentioned before. I would consider Rae a very metropolitan person. One would think New York, Paris or Amsterdam, but do not put her in a box! She will surprise you. She hails from Alabama and she took everything back home for her big day. The venue was a beautiful southern Antebellum Plantation called Creekside Plantation. The location borders a vineyard and a wildlife reserve and follows the borders of the Tennessee River and is absolutely stunning. I cannot express enough how fun it was to experience what looked like a throwback southern wedding but was bookended with left of center charm. Yes Rae and Phillip got married in front of a Antebellum Mansion but YES they did have a black cake!

Speaking of diversity let me walk you through the music. Rae and Phillip’s first dance song was“Love is a Career” by Dean Martin. First of all what a great song! But secondly what a different outside of the box selection. Rae chose “Wildflowers” by Tom Petty as her Father Daughter dance and I could not have thought of a better selection. The real veer off the road though was her bouquet toss song. “One of a Kind” by G-Dragon is a Korean Pop song that worked perfectly for our bouquet toss. And to be honest I was not surprised in the least that Rae would have chosen that song. It fits her perfectly! I like to see couples take chances for these kinds of moments in weddings. As far as the rest of the day went we had the perfect mix of music. We took chances on the prelude by playing some harder to find selections by artists such as Utada, Lana Del Rey and Angus and Julia Stone. A couple of my favorite prelude songs were “Murder In The City” by The Avett Brothers and “Once Upon a Dream” which was the dark cover of the Sleeping Beauty classic song by Lana Del Rey. Cocktail and Dinner was pure classic Rat Pack jazz. There was something beautiful hearing those old standards moving across the grounds and trees of this old plantation. Once we moved to the dancing part of the evening the gloves were off! That moment was reserved for guilty pleasure nostalgia and fun. We kicked on the dance lighting while the rest of the pavilion was lit with classy amber lights and you could still see the constant flash of the photo booth in the back. Rae and Phillip’s guests spared NO time getting on the dance floor and we had it packed the entire night!

We honestly had a blast down in Alabama. Rae and Phillip are fantastic people and we were honored we got to be a part of their day. Check out the photos from the fantastic Glass Jar Photography and the video we made from this episode of DJ Diaries to get just a glimpse of how much fun we had at this gorgeous wedding. And if you are in the market for an amazing photographer check out Rae Marshall Photography online and you can see her work on our website at www.briansnyderentertainment.com. She even made our motley crew look presentable.